Your NDIS decision is wrong. You have three months, you can ask by phone, and the person who decided cannot review it

We have reported that nine in ten NDIS complaints are about the agency rather than providers, and that the agency meets one 21 day deadline 96 per cent of the time and another far less often. What we had never set out is the thing a participant can actually do about a decision. It is section 100 of the NDIS Act, it is shorter than people expect, and three of its provisions are routinely news to the person affected.

26 August 2026 Act at compilation No. 25, read 26 Aug 2026 2 primary sources

Before anything else: they have to tell you why

A reviewable decision does not just arrive. Under subsection 100(1) the decision-maker must give written notice of the reviewable decision, and of the reasons for the reviewable decision, to each person directly affected by it. Reasons, in writing, are not a courtesy you request. They are part of making the decision.

The notice also has to tell you your options. Subsection 100(1A) requires a statement that the person may request a review of the reviewable decision in accordance with this section, or, for certain decisions, that the decision will be reviewed automatically, and that the person may seek further review under section 103.

Three months, and the clock starts when you receive the notice

Subsection 100(2) lets any person directly affected ask the decision-maker to review the decision. If you were given a notice, the person must make the request within 3 months after receiving the notice. Not three months from the decision. Three months from receiving the notice of it.

The provision almost nobody is told about

You do not have to write a letter. Subsection 100(3) allows the request to be made by sending or delivering something in writing, or by making an oral request, in person or by telephone or other means.

And the burden of recording it is not yours. If you ask orally, subsection 100(4) requires the person receiving the request to make a written record of the details of the request and to note on the record the day the request is made. So a phone call is a valid request, and the obligation to date it sits with the agency, not with you.

For anyone who finds written processes hard, which on this scheme is a great many people, that single subsection is the difference between a right that exists and a right that can be used.

The reviewer cannot be the person who decided

This is the second thing worth knowing. Subsection 100(5A) says the decision-maker cannot review the reviewable decision personally if the decision-maker was involved in making the reviewable decision, and 100(5B) extends the same bar to a delegate who was involved. Internal review is internal, but it is not the same desk.

What the reviewer may then do is set out in subsection 100(6), and it is all three options: confirming the reviewable decision; or (b) varying the reviewable decision; or (c) setting aside the reviewable decision and substituting a new decision.

Ninety days to decide

Subsection 100(6A) puts a clock on the agency as well. The reviewer must decide within a period set by the NDIS rules, or if there are no such rules, within the period of 90 days beginning on the day the request is received.

Note the structure, because it is the same shape we found in aged care: the Act sets the outer default and the rules can set the real number. If you are counting your own days, count from the source rather than from us.

Some decisions are reviewed without you asking

A small category is reviewed automatically. Where the decision-maker is taken to have made a decision because a statutory period ran out, under subsections 21(3), 47A(5) or 48(4), the notice must say the decision will be reviewed automatically. In other words, a decision the agency is deemed to have made by missing a deadline does not need you to challenge it.

That list grows on 1 October 2026. The Act that passed this month adds subsection 47B(6) to it, which is the deemed refusal of a plan variation for a high support needs participant. It is one of three identical insertions that Act makes to section 100, the other two being into subparagraph 100(1A)(a)(ii) and subparagraph 100(6A)(b)(ii), and together they widen automatic review rather than narrowing anything.

If internal review does not fix it

Section 103 is the external step. Applications may be made to the Administrative Review Tribunal for review of a decision made by a reviewer under subsection 100(6). Note what that means in sequence: the Tribunal reviews the internal review decision, so the internal step is not optional decoration, it is the gateway.

An application may be made only by, or on behalf of, a person directly affected by the decision. The Tribunal is the Administrative Review Tribunal established by the Administrative Review Tribunal Act 2024, which replaced the Administrative Appeals Tribunal. Older guidance naming the AAT is describing a body that no longer exists under that name.

Our view

Labelled as opinion, on the provisions above. Section 100 is better drafted than its reputation. Written reasons by default, an oral request, a bar on self-review and a stated outer limit are real protections, and several of them are more generous than the equivalents elsewhere in Commonwealth administrative law.

The gap is not in the section, it is in what reaches people. The right to request a review by telephone, and the corresponding duty on the agency to write it down and date it, is the single most useful thing in the section for the participants least able to use a written process, and it is close to invisible outside the Act. It costs nothing to say. Any letter that tells someone they may seek a review could say, in the same breath, that a phone call counts.

What this page does not tell you

This describes the law, not your matter, and it is not legal advice. Whether a particular decision is a reviewable decision is decided by the table in section 99, which this page does not reproduce. We have not covered the separate complaints pathway to the NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission, which is about provider conduct rather than agency decisions, and is a different route with different rules. Timeframes set by the NDIS rules can differ from the Act's default, so check the current rules before relying on the 90 days. The Act is quoted at the compilation stated in the dateline; it changes often, and one change to this section is already scheduled.

Primary sources

National Disability Insurance Scheme Act 2013, compilation No. 25, in force from 6 May 2026 (authorised PDF, downloaded and read 26 Aug 2026): section 100 in full, being the duty to give written notice and reasons, the required contents of that notice including both review routes and the automatic-review case, the three month period running from receipt of the notice, the written and oral request methods, the duty to make and date a written record of an oral request, the bars on the original decision-maker and an involved delegate conducting the review, the three outcomes open to a reviewer, and the 90 day default where the rules set no other period; and section 103, being applications to the Administrative Review Tribunal for review of a decision made under subsection 100(6) and the limit on who may apply.
National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Act 2026, No. 66, 2026 (authorised PDF, read 26 Aug 2026): its commencement table; that the Act amends section 100 three times (items 34C, 34D and 34E, each inserting a reference to subsection 47B(6) after 47A(5), in subparagraph 100(1A)(a)(ii), paragraph 100(5)(b) and subparagraph 100(6A)(b)(ii)); that it also reaches section 103, by item 34G, by items 53 and 54 amending subsection 103(2), and by item 55 inserting a new section 103A on review of a plan that has ceased by force of section 50A; and that items 34C to 34G sit in Schedule 1 Part 4, commencing 1 October 2026, while items 53 to 55 sit in Schedule 1 Part 5, commencing 1 February 2027.

Methodology

Section 100 and section 103 are quoted from the Act as compiled, downloaded from the Federal Register of Legislation and read directly, rather than from any agency summary of the review process. The compilation number is stated on the page because this Act is amended often.

Correction, 28 August 2026. This page previously said that Act No. 66 of 2026 makes exactly one amendment to section 100, and that it does not touch section 103 at all. Both statements were wrong, and re-reading the Act itself is what found it. The Act amends section 100 three times, not once: items 34C, 34D and 34E each insert a reference to subsection 47B(6), into subparagraph 100(1A)(a)(ii), paragraph 100(5)(b) and subparagraph 100(6A)(b)(ii). It also reaches section 103, by item 34G, by items 53 and 54 amending subsection 103(2), and by item 55 inserting a new section 103A dealing with review of a plan that has ceased by force of section 50A. Nothing quoted on this page changes, because all of those items commence later: items 34C to 34G on 1 October 2026 with Schedule 1 Part 4, and items 53 to 55 on 1 February 2027 with Schedule 1 Part 5. The error was in how widely we said the Act reached, not in the text we quoted.

Update, 27 August 2026. Compilation No. 25, quoted throughout this page, ceased on 27 August 2026 when the first provisions of Act No. 66 of 2026 commenced. The Federal Register has not yet published the replacement compiled text, and the Register records the Act as having commenced unincorporated amendments. Nothing that commenced on 27 August touches section 100 or section 103: the provisions that reach them are in Schedule 1 Parts 4 and 5, which commence on 1 October 2026 and 1 February 2027. We are recording the version change rather than quietly leaving a superseded compilation number on the page.

We checked specifically whether the Act that passed this month disturbs what is described here, because it would be easy to publish a review guide that is wrong within weeks. On the text quoted here it does not, and that check is the reason this page states the position with a date attached rather than in the present tense alone. What it does change, from 1 October 2026 and again from 1 February 2027, is set out in the correction above.

Where this page summarises a subsection rather than quoting it, that is signalled. No individual, official, provider or case is named, and nothing here describes any participant's circumstances.

Spotted an error, or has a rule changed the timeframe? Request a correction and we will check it against the Act and log the outcome here.